Hopefully that headline wasn’t too misleading – I just didn’t want to use the words “rear-ended” in the same headline as Jennifer Lopez and Leah Remini‘s names. Indeed, the pair were out driving in NY (I think?) when the BFFs were hit by a drunk driver. Luckily, they were okay and no one was hurt.

Good that they’re okay. Also, what the hell is wrong with drunk people getting behind the wheel? Ugh, I’ll never understand it. This all seems a bit vague, as well – were the police not called? Did the driver not get arrested? “Cursing out” someone who could kill someone on the road isn’t much of a reaction…

Leah Remini left the Church of Scientology last year after many years because it’s an awful cult that seriously believes aliens created the world and are going to come back and take us all away on a spaceship sometime soon to our home planet or something. I suppose in that light, it’s no more ridiculous than the whole Christianity thing, but nonetheless, I think we can all agree followers of Scientology are all cuckoo. The ones who aren’t get out – but at a price.

While Leah has remained somewhat mum about the ins and outs of her exit from the scene, she’s finally spoken out about what a bunch of insane liars Scientologists are. Apparently her family was involved in the “religion” since Leah was a kid, and the story behind it is BONKERS!

Remini has since learned, albeit the hard way, that honesty isn’t always the best policy in Hollywood, a place she’s called home since 1983 when her pregnant mother, Vicki, could no longer stand the living conditions her daughters endured at The Church of Scientology’s Clearwater, Florida location.

“We went from a middle-class lifestyle [in Brooklyn, N.Y.] to living in a roach-infested motel with six other girls off a freeway in Clearwater,” Remini recalled of her family’s transition to the Church’s compound in Florida, before her 10th birthday. “We were separated from our mother. We had to sign billion-year contracts we didn’t understand. And we kept saying, ‘Why are you doing this to us? Why are we here?’”

“We were working from morning until night with barely any schooling,” Remini said of her early days at the Church. “There was no saying no. There was no being tired. There was no, ‘I’m a little girl who just lost her father and everything I’ve ever known.’ There was only, ‘Get it done.’”

“If the church needed a ballroom wall knocked down, you made it happen because there were heavy repercussions if you didn’t,” Remini continued. “And although that was horrendous for a child to deal with, at the same time, it gave me my work ethic.”

Eventually her family moved to Los Angeles, she became an actress, etc. So what made her finally leave the church? Well, she has a daughter of her own now who’s getting to the age where she’d have to start being indoctrinated, and Leah was not having that shit.

“I started thinking of my own childhood and how I grew up resenting my mother because she was never home,” Remini explained. “It’s funny; somehow my father, the guy who left his kids and never paid child support, was excluded from my resentment and I grew up resenting my mother for not being home to make food, like all my friends’ moms were. But my mom thought she was doing something good; she thought she was helping the planet. That’s what the Church tells you.”

Remini soon began to speak to her friends within the Church, many of whom she’d known for nearly three decades, about implementing changes, yet she was only met with opposition.

“We had a chance to make a change from within, but they didn’t want to,” Remini said. “That showed me they didn’t actually care, which went against everything I thought we stood for. They only cared that their lives would be disrupted if they stood with me. They didn’t care about doing the right thing. That showed me everything the Church taught me was a lie.”

“In the Church, you’re taught that everybody is lost,” Remini explained. “They say they’re loving, caring, non-judgmental people, but secretly, they were judging the world for not believing what they believed. To me, that is not a spiritual person. That’s a judgmental person and that is the person that I was. I was a hypocrite, and the worst thing you can be in this world is a hypocrite.”

There’s so much more to it than this, so I recommend giving the full article a read, as Leah’s had an interesting life and comes off to me as really likeable. As for the Church of Scientology’s response to this? Here’s what a rep for the Church said in a statement:

“It comes as no surprise that someone as self-absorbed as Leah Remini with an insatiable craving for attention would exploit her former faith as a publicity stunt by rewriting her history with it, including omitting that she was participating in a program to remain a Scientologist by her own choice, as she was on the verge of being expelled for her ethical lapses,” a rep for the Church tells Us Weekly exclusively.

Leah Remini is killing it on Dancing with the Stars, in case you haven’t been watching. And if you haven’t, they should. They put Bill Nye in a Beethoven costume and made him dance a Latin dance to a Beethoven symphony. But anyway, this is about Ms. Remini. She poured her heart out on the show and revealed her true thoughts on The Church of Scientology. From L.A. Times:

I’m going through a personal big change for me and my family. I was always so scared to be myself. You’re used to everything that happens to us is our fault. You’re used to taking a lot of negativity on yourself. The church is looking for me to fail so they can say to their parishioners, ‘See what happens when you leave the church?’

I think she’s being smart by being so vocal about her fear, because now if something bad or weird happens to her, or if she were to “disappear” then “the church” is going to be suspect.

Once I spent a few hours at night alone in my apartment reading about Scientology and I was too creeped out to walk down the hall into my bedroom to go to sleep :(

ELLEN: Why did you choose to leave, if you can answer that?
LEAH: Well, you know, my mother got involved when we were very young, so it’s all we really ever knew. But over time my eyes opened, and I just could no longer be affiliated with the organization, and my family felt the same, so we left.

…

ELLEN: Are you OK? LEAH: I’m OK. Yeah, I’m OK. To answer your question, it’s hard, and we’ve lost friends that can no longer talk to us who are still in the organization.
ELLEN: Now, that is a thing, when you leave the church they can’t talk to you or you can’t talk to them or something?
LEAH: Correct.
ELLEN: Wow.
LEAH: And these are friends that we’ve had for, you know dozens of years. But, I have great friends, other friends that are not in the church that have stood by us. And our family is stronger, we’re together, and that’s all I can ask for.
ELLEN: You have me, I’m your friend, we’re your friends.

It’s a pretty big deal for Ms. Remini to be this vocal about the bitchiness of Scientology. They don’t take kindly to people who disagree with their ways and/or esteemed leaders.

BILL NYE. BILL FREAKING NYE. Bill Nye “The Science Guy” is one of twelve contestants competing in season 17 of Dancing with the Stars. Fantastic!! Here are the rest of your dancing heroes.

– Snooki. Yes, it’s happened.
– Leah Remini rumors were true, though she was not on Good Morning America this morning with the rest of the cast. I hope she’s safe.
– Valerie Harper, which was already confirmed.
– Glee alum Amber Riley. (She will be paired with Derek Hough. If you watch the show, you know this is a very surprising partner for her to get.)
– Elizabeth Berkley.
– Jack Osbourne.
– NFL player Keyshawn Johnson (no idea, sports are so painfully not my thing.)
– Corbin Bleu (from High School Musical, isn’t that practically cheating?)
– Brant Daugherty, actor. No effing idea. Apparently he’s known for Pretty Little Liars.
– Bill Engvall, comedian. No idea.
– Christina Milian.

Are you going to watch?

Wait, I just realized who Keyshawn Johnson is. He’s the dude who keeps driving Justin Bieber‘s cars and effing them up. Brilliant.

Though summer’s technically not over, I think it’s time to take a look back at everything that happened these summer months. There was a LOT. What do you think was the most shocking? The most WTF? The best fashion moment? Let’s vote!

Brace yourselves: Dancing with the Stars is coming, and with it, casting rumors! I LOVE DWTS CASTING RUMORS. First, here are the confirmed dancers:

– Valerie Harper, of Rhoda fame (confirmed by TMZ). Valerie Harper is also badass in her own right. She’s got a form of terminal brain cancer but she wants to do DWTS to bring as much attention to cancer research as possible. I’m guessing she’s donating her fee to that, too. It’s great that she’s feeling well enough to do this show. People make fun of it, but DWTS can be very grueling, physically and mentally.